Field
The disclosed and claimed concept relates generally to detachable connection device and, more particularly, to a connector having cooperable male and female portions and that is movable from a connected condition to a detached condition through the use of only a single hand.
Related Art
Numerous types of connection devices are known in the relevant art. Certain connection devices such as glue, nails, and the like, are intended to non-detachably connect things together, whereas other types of connection devices such as buckles, hook-and-loop connectors, and the like are intended to detachably connect things together.
A well-known type of detachable connector includes a female portion and a male portion that are cooperable. The female portion has a receptacle and has a set of locking structures on opposite sides of the receptacle and further has a pair openings generally adjacent the locking structures on opposite sides of the receptacle. The male portion has another set of locking structures on opposite sides thereof that are cooperable with the locking structures on the female portion when the male portion is received in the receptacle. In such a connected condition, a pair of button-like structures on the male portion are received in the openings, and the locking structures on the male portion are in an interference position with the corresponding locking structures on the female portion. In the interference position, the locking structures on the male portion are situated to be engaged with or to be engageable with the corresponding locking portions on the female portion, which resists removal of the male portion from the receptacle on the female portion.
When a pair of confronting compressive forces are applied to the button-like structures of the male portion (that are received in the openings on the female portion), the compressive forces elastically deflect certain other structures of the male portion to move the locking structures thereof out of the interference position. This permits the male portion to be removed from the female portion to detach from one another whatever items are connected with the male and female portions. While such connectors and other connectors have been generally effective for their intended purposes, they have not been without limitation.
In order to detach such connectors, the confronting compressive forces that are applied to the male portion often need to be more or less precisely confronting one another and more or less of the same magnitude in order to cause the corresponding latching structures on both sides of the male portion to be simultaneously moved out of interference with the corresponding latching structures on the female portion to permit removal of the male portion from the receptacle. The application of such confronting forces with the necessary degree of precision is not always easy, and first attempts to apply such confronting forces to detach the male and female portions from one another are often unsuccessful and require second or even third attempts. Such detachment can be made even more difficult when the connector is employed as a part of a detachable dog collar or cat collar that is situated about the neck of an animal. The neck of an animal typically is relatively low to the floor, at least compared with the height of a person's hands when standing, and the animal's neck typically protrudes from its body at an oblique angle to the floor. The applying of such confronting forces with the required degree of precision in the context of an animal collar may be even more difficult due to the awkward position of at least one of the two button-like structures that must be pressed simultaneously in order to open the connector. Such difficulty may be exacerbated by the button being embedded in animal fur or situated at the underside of the neck that is difficult for the user to see. Improvements thus would be desirable.